


But What are the Civilian Applications?

by NeurotropicAgentX



Series: So Much to Tell You [2]
Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Aliens, Animal Death and Consumption, Enemies to Lovers, Other, Rare Pairings, Xeno, symbiosis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-12 04:17:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18438860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeurotropicAgentX/pseuds/NeurotropicAgentX
Summary: Humans had the saying ‘not even if you were the last person on the planet’. Venom found it strange for them to have this concept when they only had the one planet. The concept itself was also strange. If you were alone and stranded on an alien planet, why wouldn’t you seek out the only other member of your species?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Dark AO3, show me the forbidden OT4. 
> 
> Probably best to read [Goal-Directed Behaviour](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18107882) first for context, but you do you. Many thanks to my editor for her invaluable assistance.

Eddie was jerked awake by a loud generic ringtone. He made a noise that was definitely not words. Venom hissed awake at the back of his skull and wrapped a tendril around the offending phone. He didn’t throw it against the wall, but it was a near thing for the both of them. It occurred to slightly-more-awake-Eddie that this was the phone from Drake. The one with the contact for ‘Louise Security’ and nothing else. The one that was supposed to be a way for Venom to coordinate with Drake’s goons in the event of Riot going back to plan ‘kill all humans’ and dragging Drake’s body along, willing or unwilling. 

The time 8:32am stared back at Eddie when Venom passed him the phone. He hoped it was a wrong number or a scam or something. Maybe he _wanted_ to hear about the exciting opportunities for a new insurance provider for the car he didn’t have. 

He took the call and held the phone to his ear. ‘Is this Louise?’ he tried.

 **‘No,’** came a low, familiar growl. 

Venom instantly went still where he’d been swirling lazily beneath Eddie’s diaphragm. ‘Uh, hi Riot,’ Eddie said, for lack of anything better.

 **‘Hello.’** Then dead air.

Eddie blinked and tried to summon more of his brain. ‘Isn’t this a little early?’

**‘We have been awake for two hours.’**

Eddie decided he hated Drake, but like _more_. Of course he’d be a morning person. It occurred to mostly-awake-Eddie, who was now able to connect thoughts together, to ask. ‘Why are you calling?’ Throwing the phone at the wall was looking more and more appealing, especially if Riot was going to use it to make wake-up calls. 

**‘I want to signal with Venom.’**

‘You mean talk? Gimme a sec.’ He was about to consult with V when Riot cut across him. 

**‘Not talk. Signal. Noise communication is… limiting.’**

Eddie blinked and then blinked again. ‘Right… so you, uh? What?’

There was deep sigh on the other end, suspiciously reminiscent of Drake. **‘Explain to him, Venom.’**

Venom manifested a head above Eddie’s shoulder. **‘What makes you think I want to signal with you?’** he asked.

Riot made a harsh grating noise. **‘Because we are both far from home. Severed from all the rest. Because words and noises are not good enough to explain why!’**

Venom’s head jerked back from the phone, even though the cheap speaker didn’t amplify Riot that much. **‘Fine. Our territory, not yours. And just you. Yous,’** said Venom.

 **‘Agreed.’** Even over the mediocre connection, Riot’s relief was audible. 

‘What?’ said Eddie.

 **‘I’ll explain later,’** said Venom to Eddie. **‘No trouble,’** he added to Riot.

 **‘Already said I didn’t want you dead.’** The call disconnected.

Eddie stared at the phone in his hand for a good few seconds before turning to stare at Venom instead. ‘Okay, so what just happened?’ He’d thought he’d gotten pretty good at working out what Venom was feeling most of the time, but Eddie had no idea how to interpret this complex mix.

 **‘Riot… isn’t wrong, exactly. Talking is pretty inefficient for communicating.’**

‘Okay. I, uh, kind of thought you hated Riot.’

Venom’s confusion bled through their connection. **‘…No?’**

‘You know, because of how he tried to kill us and I’m pretty sure he tried to eat you.’

**‘Yes? And we tried to kill him. Would have tried to eat him if we were strong enough.’**

‘So a bit of attempted murder and cannibalism, no hard feelings?’

Venom relaxed. **‘Yes, exactly.’**

Eddie blinked. ‘Right. That’s… not exactly how it works between humans.’ His gaze skittered away from Venom as he forced himself to ask the hard question that was hanging over them. ‘Do you miss your homeworld, or your people or whatever? Is that why you want to see Riot?’

Venom’s face and tendrils stilled for a moment before resuming their lazy coiling in the air. **‘What _we_ are is everything. It’s correct. Hard to describe it in words. What we have is better than anything my world or my people have to offer.’**

‘But…?’

 **‘No but.’** Venom said firmly. **‘Signalling with Riot could be useful. It is communication, low-level information exchange. I don’t miss it, exactly, but if the option is there, why not take it? And Riot? Riot probably misses it. He was a team leader. He had more to lose.’**

‘It sounds like you feel sorry for him.’

Venom retreated back beneath Eddie’s skin and curled around his ribs. **Maybe. After all, he doesn’t have you.**

///

Perhaps it shouldn’t have been a surprise that a few days later Drake turned up outside Eddie’s apartment in full human-mode. Venom had explained that signalling would require direct contact and in Earth’s hostile atmosphere that meant direct contact through human hosts. It made sense that Drake would take the trip across the city himself, rather than letting Riot bound across the rooftops. It had been weeks since they’d last seen any hint of Riot, so maybe he and Drake didn’t go hunting the way he and Venom did. He tried not to think about what they might do instead.

Drake looked like he’d dressed for the cameras, not a hair or stitch out of place. He, they, were also alone by the look of things. Venom was pretty good at detecting intruders into their territory and he wasn’t warning Eddie about any security goons lurking just outside the building. Drake managed a smile when Eddie opened the door, though the expression was pretty strained around the edges. ‘Hello, Eddie, Venom. You look well.’ 

Eddie just stared at him. ‘Cut the crap, Drake, we’re not friends.’

Drake’s smile became meaner and a lot more genuine-looking. ‘Oh, I see. You want to make this _more_ awkward for Riot and Venom. I suppose that’s one way of doing things.’ 

Eddie felt the bizarre desire to bare his teeth and snap at Drake. Or that was Venom. Or Venom had been in him long enough that that’s just how they were now. Instead, he stepped aside grudgingly. ‘Get in here. You’re only slightly less conspicuous than your other half. Who wears a suit like that to a neighbourhood like this?’ 

Drake breezed through the door without deigning to reply and looked around with interest. Eddie was suddenly uncomfortably aware of the half-clean shirt hanging over the back of his couch and the dirty bowls on the table. He refused to mumble something about not expecting company. It wasn’t as if Venom and Riot had organised a specific time. Venom didn’t seem to really _get_ times and dates.

Drake’s presence in his apartment was setting Eddie’s teeth on edge. In some ways Riot would have been a lot easier to deal with. _He_ wouldn’t have been silently judging Eddie’s life choices. Or at least not the ones involving the state of the lounge room. 

‘So, V, you want to take over or…?’ Eddie asked and scratched the back of his head.

Drake’s gaze stopped dissecting the couch and snapped over to Eddie.

‘Was that for my benefit or do you not subvocalise?’ he asked.

Eddie blinked at him. ‘What?’

‘Riot can pick up on what I want to say by the minute shifts in my vocal cords and throat without the need to actually speak out loud. I would assume Venom can do the same.’ He seemed genuinely curious, though there was a definite sting to the idea that Drake had worked out how not to look like he was holding a conversation with himself so quickly. It had taken them weeks to get a hang of the mind-link telepathy stuff and even now they could only do it well when Venom was overlaying him.

 **We like the sound of your voice,** Venom said indignantly in the back of Eddie’s skull.

‘Let’s just say there’s no way in hell I would ever do anything for your benefit,’ Eddie said to Drake, neatly side-stepping the question. 

Drake gave a pleasant smile. ‘Not on purpose, I’m sure.’

‘Let’s just do this.’ Eddie sprawled on one corner of the couch and gestured at the end. ‘Be my guest.’ The flicker of distaste in Drake’s expression as he glanced at the couch was deeply satisfying. He sat at a distance that wouldn’t have been awkward if they hadn’t hated each other’s guts. 

Drake extended his hand, palm up, liked he’d researched non-threatening gestures, but hadn’t managed to get to the bit that said staring at someone like they were a lab specimen spoiled the effect. ‘Well?’ he said.

Eddie grimaced, but slapped his hand into Drake’s. It was warm. Eddie didn’t get a lot of human contact these days, but he was pretty sure he ran even hotter than he used to before Venom. There was a weird suspended moment and the hairs on the back of Eddie’s neck stirred. Then Venom flowed down his arm, beneath the skin, and something else surged up into his palm and fingertips. Riot, that had to be Riot. His presence felt strange, nothing like Venom’s but then again, he wasn’t trying to establish a foothold in Eddie’s body. Probably. 

Drake’s breath caught the moment Venom and Riot established a link. He was staring down at their hands like his gaze could strip away the skin to see what was going on underneath. ‘Incredible. Describe what you’re feeling,’ he added, glancing up at Eddie.

Eddie gave him an incredulous look. ‘You must be so used to people just doing what you tell them to. News flash: I don’t take orders from you.’

Annoyance flashed across Drake’s face, mixed with some other look that was gone before Eddie could parse it. ‘Alright then, please,’ said Drake, even managing to make it sound genuine. Eddie’s heart rate kicked up and he found himself caught by Drake’s intent stare. He didn’t think too hard about why that ‘please’ had hit him like a gut punch. Drake wet his lips and continued. ‘Please tell me what this feels like to you, because the symbiotes are a scientific marvel and we’re the only two humans in existence with the privilege of having direct access to this.’ 

Eddie had to swallow before he could get his next words out. ‘Ask me nicely up front next time and we’ll see.’

Something molten glinted in the depths of Drake’s eyes. Anger, Eddie told himself, he’d definitely pissed Drake off. Heat curled low in his guts at the thought of _getting_ to Drake, breaking through that public, personable mask to the monster he knew lurked inside. The Drake that could watch people die in his labs for his twisted little experiments. ‘Next time,’ Drake repeated softly. ‘I’ll hold you to that.’

It wasn’t just Eddie’s mouth getting ahead of his brain. What he wasn’t about to tell Drake was the warm contentment he could feel through his link with Venom. Signalling with Riot was nice, a kind of alien comfort and sharing that was lighting up bits of their consciousness that had nothing to do with their human brain. Eddie didn’t have the words for what this was, but he knew with bone-deep certainty that there would be a next time. Venom liked it, _they_ liked it, and the relief in Riot’s voice when Venom had agreed over the phone was suddenly making a lot more sense.

Eddie relaxed back against the couch and even Drake had gone silent. Eddie wordlessly nudged at his link with Venom, offering his own contentment back. Venom’s tentative pleasure at Eddie’s acceptance was a warm glow and the connection strengthened until they started to merge. Fully sharing consciousness was something that mostly happened when they were in danger or when they were hunting because it made them faster. It was novel to feel it now when they were safe.

Time fell away while they were like this. They registered the close shift of their tendrils against another’s, deep and away from the oxygen. A thumb stroked against the back of their hand and their fingers tightened minutely in another warm grip. Their heart pumped blood at a slow, steady rate, tidal and soothing. They manifested outer projections over their skin to anchor. 

Then all the low-level messages had been traded. They didn’t want to exchange high-level data or genes. There wasn’t quite enough trust for that. Reluctantly they slid back from the neutral ground of fingertips and palms, gently breaking contact and coiling back into themselves. Their shared consciousness receded back to something more stable, more sustainable. 

Eddie opened his eyes and blinked. Venom was pressed around the inside of his ribcage and a few of his tendrils were manifesting to wind lazily down his arms and across his back. His hand was still in Drake’s. He glanced down at the thumb caressing the back of his hand and raised his eyebrows. Drake froze for a moment before pulling his hand away. ‘Sorry,’ he said, sounding a little embarrassed. A piece of Riot was just visible above Drake’s shirt collar where it was wrapped around his neck. Eddie felt a flash of curiosity to find out how far down Drake’s body Riot was manifesting and to see that otherworldly silver overlaying brown human skin. He blinked again.

‘S’okay,’ said Eddie.

Drake reached up and absently traced Riot’s tendril with his fingertips. He seemed to be staring at the blank wall in front of him. Maybe he was doing that subvocalisation thing with Riot. ‘Well that was certainly… educational,’ Drake said slowly.

Eddie stood up, wanting some distance. Venom shifted inside him. **Eddie. We want a shark. We should eat a shark,** he said out of nowhere. 

‘Yeah, okay buddy, whatever you want.’

 **Best host.** Venom’s tone was smug.

‘Hey, you want a glass of water or something?’ Eddie found himself saying to Drake. 

Drake opened his mouth and then closed it again. Seeing him so off-balance was weirdly compelling. ‘Yes. Water would be good. Thank you,’ he said after a moment. 

Eddie went to the kitchen and got a couple of glasses. It was easier to breathe now that it was just them and he could pretend an evil megalomaniac and his unstable, genocidal space-boyfriend weren’t crashing on his couch having some kind of moment. 

Drake seemed a little more focused when Eddie walked back in. He was typing rapidly on his phone, but put it away a few seconds later. Riot wasn’t showing himself anymore. Drake took the water with an absent nod of thanks. His gaze wandered across Eddie’s arms as he sipped at his water. It took Eddie a moment to realise that it was Venom Drake was staring at, and not the tats. Eddie drained his glass, put it on his battered coffee table, and folded his arms. 

Drake finished his own glass and stood, just a hair too fluidly for a human. Eddie’s mouth went dry. ‘Thank you for the water,’ Drake said, taking a step forward into Eddie’s personal space. 

Eddie squared his shoulders, refusing to budge an inch in his own damn home. ‘Welcome.’

‘Until next time.’

Eddie let out a long breath. ‘Yeah. Next time.’

Drake left without another word.

///

Venom gazed down at the cityscape. The lights were so pointlessly decorative. Humans were big on decorative things. Even Eddie had ink swirled beneath his skin in many colours. It must have been something to do with all the visual processing. Venom liked sharing Eddie’s vision almost as much as it liked sharing his spatial processing. 

They’d just been hunting in the oceans, looking for sharks. Ever since Riot had shared its sense-memory of occupying and then eating a shark, Venom had itched to hunt one. Eddie was happy to be hunting something other than ‘bad guys’. Humans were still the best prey as far as Venom was concerned, but hunting in three dimensions was nice too. Like home.

Venom tilted their head and tried to reconcile Eddie’s map of the city with what Riot had shared. Eddie’s map was visual, largely top-down, with a few landmarks and some strange emotional associations. Riot’s map was more intuitive and cohesive, with a few threads of the top-down perspective that must have come from its host. Venom used the bits from both humans to weave the maps together into something more usable. Their head tilted again. That was Riot’s territory. Not far from the big building near the sea that both it and Venom had strong memories about.

Riot had given them an open invitation to enter its territory. Not that Riot used the land territory as a hunting ground the way Venom did, but territory was territory. Strange of Riot to offer that much. 

Symbiosis was everything to Venom. Eddie was the perfect host and felt more like home than the homeworld ever had. But the desire was aberrant. For most people, a perfect host was nice, but not the beginning and the end of everything. Riot was aberrant too, of that Venom was sure, but perhaps not _quite_ as aberrant. It had been a team leader after all.

 _Are we okay?_ Eddie asked. _We’ve been up here for a while._

**Thinking.**

_About sharks?_

**About Riot.**

_Ah._ Venom shifted restlessly at the top of the skyscraper. _It’s okay if you want to see him, and um, signal,_ Eddie offered gently. 

Signalling had been good. Venom had been worried that the experience would be too alien for Eddie, but he’d liked it. Hadn’t minded having Riot extending up into the flesh where usually only Venom belonged. Signalling with hosts in the mix was… strange. Not bad, just strange. A shame that Eddie’s body wasn’t equipped to signal. There were things Venom wanted to share that way.

 **He offered an open invitation to his territory.** Venom thought for a moment, digging through Eddie’s memories to get the words exactly right. **Want to go crash Drake’s penthouse?**

Eddie’s amusement sparkled through their bond. _Hell yes._

Venom grinned and launched them off the skyscraper, their claws barely skating down the side to control their decent. They leapt across to the next building, power and strength coiled in every part of them. Venom liked the human design with its weird symmetry and the sensory receptors all clustered at one end. It liked joints and bones and the hyper-specialisation of every cell. Eddie didn’t know what all his different cell-types were so Venom had invented names for them. 

They became more cautious as they neared the centre of Riot’s territory. Venom stayed out, preferring to keep Eddie as safe as possible. It didn’t quite trust Riot or its host. They scaled the side of the building, guided by Riot’s map of the layout, and stopped outside the large bedroom window. Venom was contemplating whether they should break the window or just score the glass with their claws. The sound would be ugly, but it would definitely get Riot’s attention. 

Riot’s host appeared on the other side of the glass. A familiar image. Venom remembered being in suboptimal hosts, staring back through the glass and waiting for that particular human to slip up. It had imagined what his flesh would taste like. It grinned and raised one clawed hand to press against the glass. 

The movement drew Riot’s attention and blades sprouted from its host’s back as they whirled around. Drake paused. His eyes raked over Venom’s form and he took a slow human step toward the window. He reached out and laid his hand on the glass opposite Venom’s. 

Riot manifested a couple of touch-tendrils to pull the window open and it let its blades melt away. 

‘Venom, Eddie, please come in. You’re here for Riot, I assume?’ said Drake.

 _Smooth bastard,_ Eddie sneered while Venom pulled them through the window. 

Riot’s tendrils curled up in a silent question and Venom reached out and wrapped their hand around a couple of them. Unconventional, but it brought them into close-range. **You’re here to signal,** Riot sent. Communicating in a gaseous atmosphere, even with direct touch, was a little unpleasant. Signals were meant to be exchanged through liquid environments like oceans. Or host bodies.

 **Yes,** Venom replied. **It was good to communicate properly and you didn’t try anything.**

**No point.**

Venom sent a vague affirmation back and let go. Riot’s host had been watching them intently. ‘Unfortunately, I’m not really equipped to feed symbiotes here. We rely on lab animals and live seafood markets. But there’s some raw, reasonably fresh meat in the fridge. It’s not live prey, but it could take the edge off, if you’re interested.’

Venom tilted their head, turning its attention from Drake to Riot’s tendrils and back. No lashing or agitation at the offer. Raw meat wasn’t prey or a fresh kill, of course, but the offer of food was still unexpected. Venom was vaguely aware of human ‘hospitality’. That being in someone else’s territory imposed certain conditions on both parties. Like Eddie offering water even though his muscles tensed and his pulse rose when his thoughts turned to Drake. 

**‘Yes, we are interested.’**

Drake smiled and walked out of the room, talking as he went. ‘I have people working on analysing the compounds you and Riot need to live. The fact that it’s something lost from meat so quickly has made it a challenge, but the team is sharp and I have faith in them.’

Venom followed, not paying much attention to Drake’s words. Riot had looped itself around its host’s arms, strangely quiescent for a team leader. It looked… relaxed. Drake opened his fridge and took out some wrapped meat. The meat was dead, but still smelled like food.

‘You probably have more difficulties acquiring live animals than we do. So I’m not going to try and tell you to stop going after your… preferred food source.’ Drake put the meat on a plate and slid it across the bench top toward Venom. ‘But I do hope you take reasonable precautions to not to get _caught_.’

 _Wait, what?_ said Eddie. Venom shifted uncomfortably and picked up a piece of meat as a distraction. _Are Drake and Riot_ not _eating people?_

 **Riot may have mentioned something about that,** Venom admitted. 

_Between them and us,_ we’re _the cannibals. How did that happen?_

 **Only because Drake’s more paranoid about getting caught! Besides, it’s not cannibalism unless we ate another symbiosis. Like them.** Venom had been surprised that humans drew the distinction between eating the same species or a different species, and even more surprised that Eddie found one so much more distressing. Venom ate the next piece of meat. Eddie was the kind of silent that meant he was thinking very hard. 

Drake was right. This took the edge off the hunger, even though it wasn’t the same as eating real prey. Venom licked the plate when it was done, chasing the last of the juices with their tongue. **‘Thank you,’** it said. 

Drake had been watching the plate, but he blinked when Venom spoke and his gaze darted up to their eyes. ‘You’re very welcome. I suppose I also wanted to apologise for your treatment in my lab. We didn’t know you were people. We weren’t trying to hurt you at the time. We were just looking to understand you.’

Venom shrugged their shoulders. **‘Don’t care. You had the power and did what you liked. If I’d had the power I would have eaten you. I was waiting for you to slip up.’** Venom grinned, showing off their teeth.

No fear from Drake. If anything he leaned in closer. ‘An interesting attitude. And now that we both have power?’

Venom shrugged again. It liked the human gesture. The meaning was layered like a signal.

Drake hummed to himself. ‘But I’m keeping you from signalling with Riot. How rude of me.’ He reached an arm across the counter, palm up. His gaze hadn’t left Venom’s face.

**‘Not here. We’ll be distracted so you and Eddie should be comfortable.’**

Drake’s gaze flicked toward the bedroom and back again. He wet his lips before speaking. ‘Of course. There are couches in the living room.’ He came around the kitchen bench and headed into the next room. Venom stalked after him and tried to work out what Eddie was feeling. Something hot and sharp had flared just before Drake had spoken. The usual underlying anger was there, but the flavour was different, altered with other things.

**Eddie.**

Eddie started. _Huh?_

Venom thought about the way Eddie said things. **Are we okay?**

Fondness and amusement. _Yeah. Yeah, we are._

Venom settled on the couch next to Drake. Riot’s tendrils had melted back beneath Drake’s skin and Venom did the same, sinking into Eddie and up-regulating the receptors it would need for signalling. The hosts reached out to each other, tangling their fingers together like short, graceless tendrils. Venom slid down Eddie’s arm, following the bones, and projected a small fraction of its mass into Drake’s hand, right alongside Riot.

The first signals were low-level impressions and current sensory information. Riot was focused on Drake’s heartbeat, the tidal shift of air in and out of the lungs. It was thinking of their last meal, salty, thrashing live prey. Something they hadn’t hunted. Venom sent its own impressions of Eddie’s biorhythms and the puzzle of trying to put terms to his swirling emotions. 

Their communication slid a little deeper toward memory and past information. Venom updated its map of the city, adding its direct experience of coming here into Riot’s territory. It sent the memory of its last hunt with Eddie, of the bad guy they’d been allowed to eat. Riot’s membrane rippled as Venom shared the sensations of the hunt and the kill. It was even more intrigued by Venom’s attempts to hunt sharks in the ocean.

They both drew closer, beyond what was necessary for close-range signalling. After sharing those kinds of information, high-level exchange felt like a logical progression. Venom had a few sequences of interest, though of course it would be holding back the unexpected weaponry it had found hiding in Eddie’s code. It didn’t know if Drake had the same sequences or if Riot had even recognised them for what they were. 

Tight junctions formed between them. **Are you going to ask for my blades?** Riot asked.

Venom let its disbelief flavour its response. **No. Why, are you going to give them to me?** it joked. They’d fought life and death not long ago. There was no way Riot would share _weaponry_. 

Riot didn’t respond directly, but the tang of its uncertainty and tension was unmistakable with how close they were pressed. **Perhaps,** it signalled reluctantly. 

Venom stilled, thinking hard. It drew from Eddie’s consciousness too, trying to understand the offer that wasn’t quite an offer. **Not asking for that. Happy to do this anyway. For… comfort.**

The acrid signals from Riot faded away. Its affirmation was a low-intensity signal of only a few molecules and the undercurrent of its relief was even subtler. They both settled into the exchange. Inhabiting the same host species meant there was a lot of information to compare and accept or discard. Venom rejected the first couple of sequences, deciding that the proteins they made weren’t any better than the ones Eddie already produced. But the next sequence made a more efficient metabolic enzyme. Venom’s membrane rippled as it integrated the information.

Venom shared the immune genes it had picked up from Eddie and from previous hosts. Variation was useful, both for quickly supressing a host’s hostile immune system and for improving it against outside invaders. Riot integrated all of them, hungry for the useful data and recognising its value. It sent back bits of Drake’s immune codes, but it hadn’t bothered collecting them from its previous human hosts.

They drifted, half directing the process and half lost in the warm haze of trading information and integrating it. Riot was careful and didn’t try to flood the connection with data. Venom did the same, judging how much Riot had up-regulated its integration pathways and how much it could take. Maybe Venom was drawing the exchange out a little longer than necessary, but maybe Riot was too. The hunger for data was a deep burn that felt good to satisfy. 

They drew apart when the trickle of information faded to nothing. The tight junctions decoupled, but they stayed in close-range. Riot was the first to consciously signal. **I have an offer.**

Venom wound up through Eddie’s arm, spreading more of its mass back into Eddie’s torso. It gently reassured itself with light exploratory touches to the heart and lungs and spinal cord. Riot’s signal had been flavoured with trepidation. **What offer?** Venom asked.

 **We could.** A pause as the signal dissipated. Venom waited. When Riot’s next signals came they were caught between short-range and long-range, almost garbled. **No one else is here. Just us. Plenty of resources. We’ve both experienced the oceans. We could hunt together.**

Venom stopped twining around Eddie’s tendons and shifted its focus entirely toward Riot. **Hunt together?** Venom repeated, sure it had mis-transduced the signal.

Riot’s response was a vague, flinching affirmation. 

Venom went utterly still as it considered the proposal. There were stories of people hunting together, going after the biggest, most dangerous kinds of prey, but no one actually _did_ that. Did they? How could you ever trust anyone enough to hunt alongside them? Riot was strong, but not as used to symbiosis with a human. Venom wasn’t sure who’d win in a direct fight anymore, but it did know that the victory would be a costly one for either of them. 

But Riot was right about resources. This planet was teeming with life and food. Maybe here, far from the barren homeworld they _could_ hunt together. Sharing a kill, feeding alongside another person might just be worth the risks. Venom could imagine waters thick with fresh blood and the unconscious signals of another person as the hunger-burn faded between them in a glorious feedback loop. It shivered, its mass pulling toward Riot as it extended a few more tendrils. **I could imagine that,** Venom sent as the barest few molecules, as if there might be anyone else around to pick up the signal. **The hunt. The kill. With you.**

 **Yes.** Riot’s signal was far stronger than it needed to be this close. **I would like that.**

They gave no reassurances of trust or cooperative behaviour. This would work or there would be betrayal and no amount of empty signalling would change that. They both withdrew fully, deeper into their hosts. Venom’s tendrils flicked beneath Eddie’s palm and fingers, checking for any irregularities left in Riot’s wake. As its attention turned back to its host, it became aware that Eddie was speaking. ‘…hearing it with your brain, but not like the telepathy, which is more like words. It’s just good, okay?’ He wasn’t talking to Venom. The tone was different.

‘Good how?’ That was Riot’s host. Venom listened, interested in Eddie’s perception of signalling and exchange. It would share Riot’s offer later.

‘Oh come on, you can feel it too right? You know,’ said Eddie.

‘I want to know what _you’re_ feeling. What Venom’s feeling. Please, Eddie.’

There was a swooping feeling in Eddie’s body and Venom quickly checked the guts, looking for the source of the irregularity. Increased heart rate, more blood flow, and the chemical balance shifting towards… oh. Arousal. Venom spread a little further into Eddie’s blood vessels, enjoying the familiar taste-scents. Interesting to experience that shift without being responsible for it for once.

‘Happiness. It’s a kind of contentment that runs deep. It’s like we’re feeling it in our bones, but not really,’ said Eddie. 

‘Almost like the bond itself, a sense of connection and something vast hovering just out of sight.’ Venom was surprised to hear Drake describe it like that. He must be catching the edges of Riot’s memories. A team leader would have experienced a deeper connection to the rest than Venom had back on the homeworld. 

‘Yeah. Kind of.’ Eddie’s voice was quiet and he was leaning in close to Drake. 

‘What do you think of Riot’s offer?’ asked Drake.

Eddie blinked. ‘What?’

 **Riot wants to hunt together. In the oceans,** Venom explained. 

Eddie started at the sound of Venom’s voice. He blinked again. ‘You want that?’

**Yes.**

‘Very much so,’ said Drake.

Eddie’s lips twitched. ‘Hard to argue with that.’ He took his hand back from Drake. They hadn’t let go, even when Venom and Riot had broken the connection. Venom registered the split second when Drake’s fingers tightened before letting go too. It wondered if that was him or Riot. Or both. 

‘I have a place in mind,’ said Drake. Riot was there behind his eyes, but Venom was almost certain the hunger in their face came from both of them.


	2. Chapter 2

Drake stood on the deserted shore and admired the crashing waves. It was a cold night and the wind was particularly vicious so close to the water. They didn’t feel the cold much anymore, so long as Riot got enough food. In places like this, far from civilisation and pretence, Drake grasped the edges of what came so intuitively to Brock and Venom. The new species. The perfect melding of human and symbiote into something beyond either of them. 

Riot was manifesting over most of their body and only loosely following the human pattern. Tendrils ran down their limbs, ready to shift into weaponry at the slightest provocation. Thicker flesh coated the core areas most prone to heat loss as a red-veined, dark-silver mass. Clothes were unnecessary for the hunt and would only slow them down. 

Perhaps it had been foolish of Drake to imagine that he could regulate the bond between them. He had offered Riot symbiosis because the benefits had outweighed the costs. Power, speed, uncanny durability. And, because unwittingly or not, Venom had handed Drake a laundry list of Riot’s vulnerabilities. Riot was too strong to manage with force, but it was alone, craving connection, and bereft of purpose. Drake had thought that would be enough to maintain control. 

Riot rippled against Drake’s skin. **They will be here soon.** Drake nodded. It didn’t occur to him to doubt Riot’s words. 

There was a gull flying overhead, circling lower. Maybe it was expecting food. Drake gave a thin smile, feeling the edges of Riot’s predatory focus through the link. They both stilled, waiting, watching. 

As soon as the bird dipped into range, Riot struck, a blade shooting out from Drake’s arm and spearing the prey. They dragged it closer as it fluttered and died on their blade. More of Riot surrounded the limp body and it formed feeding structures to crunch through bones and meat. Three of its tendrils sprouted delicate blades that sliced deeper into the flesh, this time with a more specific purpose. Drake felt a hint of Riot’s intent and raised an eyebrow. Surely not. 

A tendril peeled away from the kill. It was curled around a chunk of meat, probably liver going by the colour. **Humans eat this,** Riot said defensively as it picked up on Drake’s distaste. 

The tendril curled up toward Drake’s lips, still clutching its grisly offering. A part of Drake was all too aware of the prospect of interesting new zoonotic diseases, but Riot’s eagerness was strumming through their bond. They didn’t have to worry about illness now and Riot wasn’t precisely wrong. If a human was going to consume raw meat from a fresh kill, the liver was probably the best way to go. And Riot had cut it out especially for him.

 **Share it.** Riot’s voice was low, the words clearly a request, rather than a demand. Drake didn’t have the context for why this was important to Riot, merely that it _was_. He sighed to himself and drew Riot’s tendril in closer, letting it press the warm meat to his lips. Raw gull tasted better than he’d expected, the flavour surprisingly rich on his tongue. Perhaps this was just another consequence of the symbiosis.

Riot growled softly, a deep, instinctual satisfaction rising up between them. Drake’s eyes slid closed and he leaned into the tendrils shrouding his body. The touches beneath his skin, along his nerves, were a familiar intimacy that made his pulse race.

‘That might just have been the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen.’

Drake’s eyes snapped open. Brock, of course. Was he wearing…? No, that was _Venom_ manifesting like clothes. Was it imitating stitches and seams? Drake itched to reach out and touch, to feel what Venom’s flesh was doing directly. He clasped his hands behind his back instead while Riot reconfigured itself defensively. ‘Eddie, Venom, a pleasure as always,’ Drake said neutrally. Maybe it was petty to enjoy the way Brock’s expression tightened at the politeness. 

‘Sure. Should we have given you two a moment?’ 

‘No. We’re here to hunt together.’ That came out more forcefully than he’d intended. Riot’s desire was set deep in their bones and Drake’s curiosity about the way symbiotes hunted together was thick enough to taste. 

Brock just nodded, looking equally serious about the prospect. He closed the distance between them and reached out. Drake mirrored the movement automatically and Riot’s projections lifted off Drake’s arm to slide against Venom’s flesh. That surface interaction was a mere hint of what was happening beneath skin. It felt like a circuit closing, a strange connection both like and unlike the one he shared with Riot. Brock shivered. Or maybe that was Venom. 

‘What are you signalling about?’ Drake subvocalised. 

**Negotiating the hunting pattern and basic strategy. Neither of us have hunted with another before,** Riot replied.

Drake made a considering sound in the back of his throat. There were layers to this hunt, unspoken currents like the ones that prompted Riot to share its kill with him. Drake was still trying to work out the right questions to ask to get the answers he wanted. Symbiote culture was so alien that even when Riot did its best to explain there were things that he just didn’t _get_. He hated not understanding.

Riot and Venom pulled away from each other, but Brock was still standing close enough that Drake could feel the heat radiating off him. Not quite human. Neither of them were anymore. A shame that humans couldn’t do what the symbiotes could. Drake was sure if he could just form that connection, get inside Brock’s head, he could _make_ him understand. There was so much conviction in him, so much unbending stubbornness, but it was channelled so… so _nonsensically_. And yet he was the one who had bonded with a symbiote first and together they’d been able to stop Riot’s disastrous plan. Drake squashed the flicker of doubt in his mind. True, he’d been wrong about Riot and its goals, but he couldn’t afford doubts and he’d never allowed them to control him before. Brock was short-sighted and didn’t think through his actions. A broken clock could still be right twice a day. Drake needed certainty in order to _fix_ things.

 **‘Let’s go,’** Riot said with their human throat.

Brock’s answering smile was inhumanly sharp and Drake watched the moonlight glint off those teeth before Riot turned them toward the ocean and plunged into the cold surf.

///

This was like nothing else. Hunting with someone else was rare enough to be a legend back home. Aside from the sort of trust you’d need to _share a kill_ people could get injured during hunts, especially going after the sort of big prey that would be worth going after with someone else. The vulnerability of injury was dangerous, like giving off a signal encouraging others to attack. 

Hunting with Eddie was good, whether they were on land or in this world’s strange-tasting oceans. But they were one, with no possibility of betrayal from within. Those hunts were a comfort and affirmation of everything they were, but this was different. This was thrilling, dangerous and required coordination and tactics. Neither Venom nor Riot had any idea how this was supposed to go and were negotiating as they went. They started in close range, their signals complex and information-dense. 

**Do you think long-range signals will be safe to use or will they alert prey?** Venom asked.

 **The prey of this world know nothing about us. For now they should be safe, but if we do this often enough they’ll learn,** Riot replied

 **You’re that confident that this will go well?** Venom signalled, letting some of its amusement flavour the message. It expected Riot to get uncomfortable or backtrack.

 **Yes,** it sent instead, as a strong-binding affirmation. **I’ve sensed the way you move with your host, I’ve felt you fight. You’ll be an asset here.**

The few sense-tendrils Venom had extended beyond the humanoid shape it was wearing flexed and coiled at the compliment. **Yes. You are strong too,** it offered back.

Now Riot’s signals had the taste of underlying of caution, but even that tang couldn’t disguise its enjoyment of the acknowledgement. They both drew out of close range and sent each other’s long-range names as a way to pinpoint location. That was how they’d agreed to orient themselves during the hunt.

They shot off together into deeper water, receptors primed to pick up movement and the taste-scent of large prey. 

_It didn’t sound like that when you signalled on land,_ Eddie said from where he was protected at the centre of Venom’s mass.

**Sound?**

Uncertainty leaked through their bond. _Uh, feel, maybe? That was your language, right? All the… signals?_

Venom didn’t have much thought to spare in the middle of a hunt, but it tried to understand Eddie. **Yes. That was signalling. You could understand it?**

Affirmation from Eddie. Maybe it was like visual processing. Venom could see colours and understand distances and depths much better when it was linked into Eddie’s brain. Maybe here in the water when the signals were dispersed and pinging off Venom’s receptors, Eddie could make sense of them too. 

_I didn’t know it was so complex or layered. It’s kind of beautiful._

Venom nearly missed Riot’s next ping and hastily sent the signal back. The water was colder here, less flavoured with human things. Larger prey would be easier to find. **Go deeper,** Riot suggested. 

**Yes,** Venom agreed.

 _Sorry, I’m distracting you,_ Eddie said.

**No! I like what you said about signalling. Thank you, Eddie.**

Pleasure and embarrassment in equal measures from Eddie. Venom shifted, its tendrils trailing back as it dived down deeper and deeper, eventually losing the light completely. It pinged Riot, orienting at the new depth. This was familiar and not. The lightless water and the massive pressure were just like home, but the taste-scents were different, the chemical make-up strange and foreign. This would not be a good environment to be in without a host. 

Venom had been filtering outside signals unconsciously, discarding small movements and vibrations as irrelevant prey. Then something big registered. Venom froze. The movements were familiar, like tendrils, a graceful weaving through the water. It wasn’t Riot. Surely, surely there were no people down here? The other scouting members were dead and there was no one else, no one but it and Riot left. 

**Riot. Thing? Prey?** Venom sent.

 **Venom. Feel it. Coming.** Riot’s signals were weak with distance, but the difference between the first and last part of its message meant it was coming in fast. 

Venom hesitated before shooting forward. The thing below them hadn’t responded to the signals, not even to attack or flee. A shape gradually resolved in Venom’s senses. **What is that?** Venom demanded of Eddie. It didn’t have the time to sort through his memories and try and match the huge curling shape with the tendrils and the flat bits and, and…

 _I can, shit, not_ see _it, but… I think that’s a giant squid._

The thought was accompanied by a slew of images and impressions, a hood and tentacles and… little fried loops? Food? At least Eddie’s memories agreed that this was prey. Venom’s teeth and claws elongated and it shot toward the central mass away from the squid’s seeking tendrils. It raked the creature’s hood, but had to twist away when the tendrils slid up fast. Venom twisted again but a tendril wrapped around it. It screeched and tore at the limb. Blood flooded the water and the tendril slid away, but more were lashing out.

Suddenly Riot tore through water and sliced deep into the squid’s tendrils with its blades. The squid shuddered and jetted off away from them. **Escaping!** Riot sent as a harsh, strong-binding signal. 

The squid was fast, but Venom was faster. It released a net made of streams of sequence and sticky specialised proteins that tangled the squid’s tendrils. Riot roared and closed in for the kill. 

_Holy shit! What was that?!_

**You can do that. Now we can do that.** Venom was smug. The weapon was a part of Eddie’s own cells and Venom had found and integrated the code. Making the nets on a larger scale wasn’t hard at all. 

Venom closed in and helped Riot finish the kill. The water was swirling with rich blood and its hunger spiked in response. Venom’s tendrils wrapped around the meat, just a little cautiously. Riot was doing the same, which meant they were in close-range. **We hunted well together,** Venom sent carefully. It hadn’t formed feeding structures yet and neither had Riot.

**Yes. That was an interesting weapon you used. Unique.**

Venom’s coils flexed around the kill. It wasn’t quite ready to explain just where it had found the code. They were both still hesitating over the food. There had to be some way to signal intent, to show trust. Venom tore away a chunk of the meat with a clawed hand, obviously _not_ a feeding structure. Riot went very still, but the shifting beneath its membrane suggested weaponry on the edge of forming. 

Venom held out the meat. They’d both made the kill, so neither of them were really in a position to offer, but they had to break the deadlock somehow. **For you.** The signal was a simple compound, but the meaning ran deep. **Share with me,** Venom added. It had never sent that particular signal before.

Riot’s membrane rippled and a burst of its surprise and yearning hit Venom’s receptors before dissipating in the waters. Riot’s tendrils slid around Venom’s hand. It anchored itself by winding down Venom’s wrist and then it curled around the meat.

Venom shivered when Riot formed feeding structures so close to its hand, its flesh. The tendril around Venom’s wrist squeezed gently and Riot shared a trickle of sensation, of hunger satisfied. The answering flare in Venom’s appetite made it growl. Riot cut away a section of the kill, its blades moving slowly and carefully so as not to threaten. It proffered the piece of food. Venom’s head tilted. It wrapped its free hand around Riot’s tendrils and pulled it closer. Its teeth closed delicately around the meat and just, _just_ brushed the edge of Riot’s flesh.

Venom felt the vibration of Riot’s growl, which was almost as satisfying as the savoury taste of fresh prey on its tongue. They both tore into the kill, satisfied that neither of them would disrupt the fragile alliance. Feeding with another so close was a dizzying sensation. The craving for fresh meat and the deep pleasure of sating it was a shared sensation, amplified beyond what either of them normally felt through unconscious signalling. 

Deeper still, Venom’s connection with Eddie was thrumming with the familiar, comforting feeling of their symbiosis. There was no mingled righteous anger and guilt like when they hunted on land. Just a faint amazement at the deadly speed of a good hunt and a confused pleasure from the shared taste of fresh prey.

 **Riot,** Venom sent, using the more complex short-range name of its hunting partner. **Signal my name. I want my host to feel it.**

 **Venom,** Riot sent back, its message a meticulous delivery of the rapidly degrading compounds that made up Venom’s short-range name.

Venom nudged at its bond with Eddie.

 _That’s your full name, huh? In your own language?_ Eddie asked.

**Yes.**

_It’s beautiful, V._

They finished the last of their kill, with Venom’s subtle happiness seeping out into the vast alien ocean.

///

Drake was buzzing when they emerged from the ocean. His heart was racing and his skin felt too tight, constraining. Every cell in his body was humming with charge and power. A distant part of him understood that this was positive feedback from Riot, that so much of symbiote biology must be geared toward making hunting pleasurable. But instead of being keyed up, Riot was a languorous, sated presence at the back of their mind. It had fed and that was enough. 

Then Brock emerged from the sea, still partially shrouded by Venom. Drake’s gaze locked onto the movement, still feeling the edges of Riot’s instincts. But it wasn’t a predator’s instincts that drew Drake’s eye. Brock and Venom looked good, inhuman and powerful in the way they moved. Like recognised like. They were the only two members of the new species on this whole planet.

Drake shifted toward Brock, his bare feet sinking into the wet sand. Brock’s head tilted, the gesture more Venom’s. There were inky tendrils twining down his arms and body and creeping up his face and neck. The contrast of them against his human skin was mesmerising and this time Drake didn’t resist the impulse to reach out and touch.

His fingertips glided down the centre of Brock’s chest. Venom’s flesh had the same smoothly organic feel as Riot’s, supple and not nearly as yielding as it looked. Brock’s skin was warm from his overclocked symbiotic metabolism, even in the cold air. He didn’t pull back or try and stop the exploration. Instead, Drake could _feel_ his heart rate pick up.

Drake’s own pulse was roaring in his ears, or perhaps that was Riot. ‘You really are magnificent, the two of you,’ he murmured. 

One of Venom’s tendrils wrapped around Drake’s wrist and drew his hand up. Drake’s breath stuttered in his chest when he realised he wasn’t being pulled off, but drawn closer. He surged forward and pressed his lips against Brock’s in a clumsy kiss. Inhumanly sharp teeth grazed his lip and heat flared low in his stomach. Riot was a wordless flood of curiosity and focused interest in the back of his mind. 

Venom’s tendril spread up Drake’s arm and Riot sent its own projections down to meet it. Drake felt the noise Brock made against his lips in response. The kiss got more aggressive, more insistent. Brock’s tongue was too long and sinuous as it swept across Drake’s lips and licked at his teeth. Both of Drake’s hands were on him now, pressed against warm skin and shifting symbiote flesh.

Then Brock pulled back. It took the symbiotes a moment to untangle themselves and that gave Drake time to resist the impulse to dig his claws in and hold on. Their claws. 

‘What?’ Drake asked, Riot’s snarl underlying the word.

‘Do you really want to fuck on a public beach in the middle of the night?’ Brock asked, sounding far too human and composed. And amused. What was his symbiosis with Venom like? Drake worried about what his connection to Riot was doing to him, what they might become. Brock didn’t seem to have that concern at all. 

Drake took a deep breath and let it out slowly and silently. ‘No. You’re right, of course. We’ll go back to my place.’

‘My place,’ Brock returned steadily. 

Drake opened his mouth to dismiss the idea before his brain caught up with him. More undercurrents. This was Brock asking for a concession. Either they would go back to Brock’s dingy little apartment to do this on his terms or they wouldn’t do this at all. The constant pushing was completely foreign to Drake. No one kept challenging him like this, kept saying no, kept on fighting even when Drake had shown just what he was capable of. It was infuriating. It was thrilling. ‘Fine. Your place,’ he said through teeth that weren’t quite gritted.

The faint lopsided smile Brock gave in response shouldn’t have been as appealing as it was. ‘Cool. Race you.’ With that Venom overlaid him completely. They transformed into a shifting creature that blended in perfectly against the dark starry sky and bounded off toward the city.

Drake stared after them in wonder until Riot manifested, seizing control and tearing off after them. **We’re losing,** it snarled.

Drake couldn’t help it, he laughed inside the coils of Riot’s flesh. This was exhilarating and scratched the strange itch left in the wake of the hunt. They moved as one, both utterly invested in catching up to Venom and Brock. As soon as they hit the first buildings the chase sped up. Both pairs leapt across rooftops and climbed up or skidded down sheer walls. Venom was a dark blur racing ahead, always just out of reach. They were glorious in the way they moved, clearly practiced and so utterly in tune with each other. 

A strange feeling welled up in Drake, something a little like envy and a little like jealousy. He wanted the unthinking ease of symbiosis the two of them seemed to have, rather than one tinged with caution and negotiation. But perhaps even more than that, Drake wanted _them_. The infuriatingly stubborn pair who’d defied him and Riot and _won_. The one force capable of standing against them if something went wrong. The perfect merger of human and symbiote into something beautiful and entrancing. Even Riot wasn’t immune to that thread of want. Venom was the only other symbiote left on the planet and its victory on the launch pad had earned Riot’s grudging respect.

Riot was the one who recognised that they were nearing Brock’s apartment. Any uneasiness it felt at being so deep in Venom’s territory was overwhelmed by the desire to win, but Venom had only gained more of a lead as the race took them further into the city. It paused when it got to the window outside Brock’s apartment, but pushed it open a few seconds later and disappeared inside.

Riot growled, putting on a last burst of speed. They swung in through the open window and were immediately tackled to the ground. Riot writhed and snapped at Venom, but Drake could tell this wasn’t a fight. The symbiotes tangled together, oozing over each other in a bid to get closer. Venom’s oddly humanoid hand sank right into the mass of Riot’s flesh until Drake felt claws pricking gently at his very human skin. Riot stilled at the implied almost-threat.

 **‘We won,’** Venom said, grinning down at them.

Drake’s next breath shuddered on the exhale and he arched up against those claw-tips. Riot manifested long bladed tendrils and wound them up Venom’s limbs to caress its back. **‘Cheated.’**

Venom made a rumbling sound that might have been agreement or maybe just amusement. It peeled away from Brock’s face, just far enough to show a glimpse of its host. Riot’s tendrils tightened around Venom and it shifted, surging around and up until both pairs were on their feet. Drake lifted their mostly-human arm so he could cup the side of Brock’s jaw. Stubble rasped against his palm and Venom’s teeth were resting against the pulse in his wrist. 

**What do you want to do to them?** Riot’s voice was a low growl, focused and intent, laced with curiosity and the restlessness that was creeping under their skin. Riot was hungry, but its cravings went deeper than food, for once.

Drake wanted to get to the raw, bloody heart of Brock and Venom. Not even to hurt, not really. He wanted to understand. He wanted to know why this particular human was so perfectly suited to symbiosis. What made Eddie Brock special, what had made Venom turn on its people so easily? He wanted to reach out and touch all the soft, vulnerable places inside them.

He wondered how far Brock would let Riot into his body, how far Venom would. Was Drake prepared to let Venom have access to his nerves in return? He trusted Riot with that kind of delicate manipulation. After choosing a more permanent host arrangement, Riot had dedicated considerable effort to understanding human physiology and it had become adept at playing with their body. 

Then Venom reached out with one large hand to stroke down Drake’s flank and palm his ass. Drake’s thoughts came to a screeching halt. That was Venom. For all the crude humanity of the gesture, the movement had been just a little too fluid and alien to be Brock’s. It hadn’t even occurred to Drake that they could fuck like humans. That direct influence over nerves and the careful shifting of chemical balances might be entirely irrelevant. It had been months since he’d re-bonded with Riot, but _only_ months. When had his perceptions altered so radically?

 **Venom wants to distance itself from what it is. So do you,** Riot said softly in Drake’s mind. 

A cold feeling swept through Drake. The revelation itself was bad enough, but for Riot to have realised something about him before he had… No. Drake was relying on intelligence and self-awareness to give him an edge against Riot. If it came to that. And to protect himself from, from _this_. From losing too much of himself. 

‘Hey, you okay?’ Brock asked, pulling back. He’d lost bulk, Venom withdrawing some of its mass and leaving more of Brock’s skin bared. 

Drake didn’t want to know what his expression must look like to be wringing this kind of concern from Brock. ‘I’m fine,’ he said, forcing a smile. Then again, this wasn’t the first instance of unthinking consideration he’d received from Brock. Drake remembered Brock offering him a glass of water and responding well to a genuine appeal for information. He remembered the sheer indignation Brock had been seething with during that interview. At the thought of people suffering, even for the greater good. ‘You like humans, don’t you?’ Drake said slowly.

Brock gave him a dubious look. ‘You mean for sex? Venom’s great, but he hasn’t like, ruined me for mere mortal banging.’ He snorted, presumably at whatever Venom’s response to that was.

Drake shook his head. What if that was the answer? Maybe Venom had been infected by Brock’s simple uncomplicated feelings about humanity. Maybe that’s why it had turned against Riot. And maybe if Drake had felt that when Riot had first gotten into him…

 **You’re thinking too much,** Riot growled. More of its mass shifted back beneath Drake’s skin so it could ooze along his nerves. 

Drake shivered and Brock’s lips quirked up until he was almost smirking. ‘I wouldn’t mind trying to ruin you for ordinary mortal banging,’ said Brock.

That sounded far too appealing. Brock probably meant claws and tendrils and inhuman strength. His concept of transcending human limitations was surface, cosmetic, and right now Drake wanted _that_ instead of worrying about what his bond with Riot was doing to his neural pathways.

‘You like it when I when say please,’ Drake said, gratified by the flush that rose in Brock’s cheeks. He spoke over the top of Brock’s mumbled response. ‘You’ll have to work at it to get that from me here.’

The defensive protests melted away and Brock sucked in a quick breath. The hand that was still grabbing at Drake tightened. It was nice to know that he wasn’t the only one with a weakness for being challenged. ‘Oh, it’s on,’ Brock breathed.

They both surged forward. Venom and Riot tangled again, but most of the sensation Drake felt was entirely human skin brushing against his own. Brock’s, Venom’s, teeth dug into his lip and clawed hands scrabbled against his hips and Riot’s tendrils. The light dimmed and flared as Riot tried to decide if it wanted to overlay Drake or try and engulf Venom and Brock too. 

Drake’s back hit a wall just as one large, powerful hand slid around to grab his cock and squeeze. The sensation was just on the edge of painful, but Drake found himself grinding up against the pressure while Riot sprouted more blades from their flesh in response. 

**‘Different without the direct feedback,’** Venom said apologetically as its grip eased. It had formed its own face right next to Brock’s.

Drake looked down at the huge, clawed hand curled around his cock. The sight sent a shock of not quite fear through him. He knew first-hand how much damage a symbiote could do.

 **I’d fix any damage.** Riot’s voice was thick with the pleasure raging through their link. 

Drake shivered at the implication that Riot would heal them, but not necessarily stop the damage from happening. **You wouldn’t want me to. Not immediately.** At least it didn’t say that out loud. 

Drake reached out to grab Brock as well, but his hand was caught by Venom’s tendrils and slammed back against the wall. His hips jerked forward entirely unconsciously and he groaned. This was so different from Riot seizing control. This was an outside force that he couldn’t predict, could barely influence. He tugged against the grip on his wrist. No give. Venom and Brock’s grins mirrored each other. 

‘Are you just going to let them?’ Drake subvocalised at Riot. 

**Yes? I like the way they’re touching us.** Riot emphasised its point by taking enough control to rut against Venom’s palm. A compelling point, Drake had to concede, as his lips parted and his head thudded back against the wall. 

‘Yeah, pretty sure. Go for it,’ said Brock.

That was all the warning Drake got before Venom shoved its tongue down his throat. His free hand was caught the second he jerked it forward to intervene and then there was nothing he could do. The sound he made was thankfully muffled. It felt like the bottom had dropped out of his stomach. Venom’s tongue was slick and invasive and Riot was doing something to their body to let this happen. Drake’s nerves were jittery and confused, sending a cascade of incomprehensible sensations right through him.

Venom or maybe Brock had started stroking his cock again and he was either going to pass out or come. Then the tongue slid out of his throat and he swore he could feel Riot caress it as it left. Drake stared at the ceiling and panted, though he wasn’t sure he even needed to breathe. Maybe if he found the right words Venom would do that again. Or Riot.

‘Hey, you still with us?’ Brock asked.

Drake blinked and his gaze drifted back down to fix on two sets of utterly mismatched eyes. He swallowed. ‘Yes,’ he managed to croak. The hand on his cock slowed, stilled. He bucked forward even before Riot voiced its complaints in the back of their skull. ‘Yes, I’m with you, come on.’ His wrists were still immobile against the wall.

‘How about a please?’ Brock asked. He was grinning, like this was some kind of joke, but the gleam in his eyes told another story. Drake would devote thought to Brock’s strange obsession with this later. When he wasn’t on the edge of orgasm.

‘Yes fine please,’ he said all in one breath. The gleam in Brock’s eyes ignited with that one word. And wasn’t that a sight? Worth it then, to sacrifice a spark of pride. Drake swallowed again, rallied. ‘Please,’ he repeated, letting his desperation bleed into the word.

Brock shivered and even more importantly started jerking him off in earnest. Venom gave a harsh rumble and ran its tongue up the side of Drake’s neck. He arched against that wet pressure. ‘Please, I want your tongue down my throat again.’

Venom obliged him and Drake’s world narrowed to white-hot pleasure. Distantly he heard Brock swear with something like wonder in his voice. The next moment it was drowned out by Riot’s grating snarl. The symbiotes didn’t have this, not alone. They could only hijack the sensation from a host. 

Drake’s thoughts were wonderfully empty as he came down. An orgasm usually sapped his energy, but they seemed to have the opposite effect on Riot. It swirled over Drake, seeping out through his pores and running down his limbs. The feeling of power Riot dragged in its wake was still like nothing else. Venom blinked at the shift and released Drake’s wrists. 

Riot made a grating noise of amusement and flexed their hands. It wasn’t overlaying that much of their body and it hadn’t quite seized control, but Riot’s impulses were the ones guiding them when they reached out to run newly formed talons down Brock’s arms. **‘Bedroom,’** said Riot, using Drake’s throat.

Brock and Venom exchanged a look. ‘Yeah, alright,’ said Brock after a long moment of silent eye contact with his symbiote. Venom’s face melted back into Brock in favour of spreading thicker tendrils across his body.

The bedroom was as small and dingy as Drake had expected, but at least the rumpled sheets looked clean. It was Riot who bore them down against Eddie’s narrow bed. **‘Let us,’** Riot growled, their hands flexing against Brock’s shoulders. **‘We can make it feel good.’**

Drake helped guide Riot’s touch, tracing down Brock’s chest, drawing nonsense patterns with their claws and skimming down his sides. He licked a strip up the side of Brock’s neck, the taste unreasonably complex with Riot riding so close. The kiss he pressed to Brock’s lips was all too human. It was a simple gesture, nearly instinctual, and there was no reason for warmth to be spreading through his whole body, even when Brock cupped the back of his head to pull him in closer.

‘Yeah, okay,’ Brock mumbled into the kiss. ‘Venom will bite if you two try anything.’

Riot immediately slid tendrils beneath Brock’s skin, searching out the familiar nerve structures. This deep in symbiosis, Drake could feel them sinking into Brock’s body. It was shockingly intimate to share this with someone who wasn’t a part of him. The expected rush of power swept through him, at least as much Riot’s, but underlying that was something just as inexorable. Being extended this kind of trust made him want to be worthy of it. 

Brock twitched and shivered as Riot spread through him. Drake could almost map Riot’s progress as memories of doing this together stirred inside him. An alien sensation prickled in Drake’s extremities and it took him a moment to realise that it was Venom sliding against them inside Brock’s body. Venom was following Riot’s movements, likely guarding against sudden betrayal. Not that it needed to bother. The desire to be found trustworthy wasn’t emanating from Drake alone. 

**Not guarding, learning,** Riot corrected.

Heat flared low in Drake’s gut at the idea of Riot _demonstrating_ for Venom, with Brock’s body as the canvas. The sudden craving to know what they were signalling to each other, to have direct access to that, was overwhelming, but he’d settle for a different kind of connection. He reached out and wrapped a hand around Brock’s cock. The warm weight of it felt good against Drake’s palm and he gave a few slow strokes. ‘I still can’t believe this is new to you both. There’s so much a human body can feel with the right stimulation.’

‘Smug’s not a good look on you,’ Brock managed to pant.

‘Liar.’

Brock’s retort was lost in a gasp as he twisted sharply on the sheets, back arching. The exact line of Brock’s latissimus dorsi was suddenly the most interesting thing in the room. Drake’s eyes traced the way Venom’s tendrils writhed against the musculature, drinking in the image and trying to imprint it on his memory. ‘Stunning,’ he breathed. 

Riot had to be playing or deliberately drawing this out. Drake knew exactly how quickly it could saturate every reward centre in the brain when it chose to. Then Brock twitched in Drake’s hand and his claws dug into his thin sheets. ‘Riot!’ he shouted. 

Drake jolted like he’d touched a livewire. Riot’s name on Brock’s lips lanced through them to the core. This was for the both of them. The only other symbiosis on the planet, panting and twisting up against them. Brock stopped shredding his sheets and wrapped his arms around them instead. Venom’s claws scored their back and Riot didn’t need Drake’s encouragement to finish this. 

**_Ours._** It was barely a word between them, instead it felt like an incoherent surge of want amplifying back and forth through their link. Riot flipped every nerve it could reach in Brock’s body, forcing him over the edge. Venom screeched, phasing in and out of view and Brock’s body went as taut as a wire, his mouth locked in a soundless scream. Drake didn’t dare blink or breathe, nothing that could detract from the glorious picture they made. His own cock was throbbing as if he hadn’t come only minutes ago. 

Riot drew back inside their body and Drake knew exactly what it was about to do to them. But instead of an immediate and harsh flood of pleasure, Riot spread itself gently across Drake’s nerve endings. The anticipation made it hard to breathe. Then a handful of Venom’s tendrils peeled off Brock’s skin and pressed against his. They shifted and slid against him in a silent question. Drake’s heart was hammering hard enough that he was sure Brock could hear it. ‘Yes, yes, please, whatever you want,’ Drake gasped. He had just enough time to feel the strange not quite pressure of someone other than Riot melting into him before both symbiotes shoved far too many nerves over into action potential. 

Riot roared as pleasure slammed into them both. Drake’s vision whited out. Someone was holding them close and steady even as they thrashed and clawed. Warm human skin, anchoring tendrils, and something deeper than that, beneath their skin. 

Drake groaned as he came back to himself. A very human hand was wandering up and down his back. **Your blood tastes good like this,** said a low, unfamiliar voice. Venom. Venom in his head, in his blood.

‘Thank you,’ Drake managed to rasp.

Venom chuckled, a surprisingly human sound, even with the alien bass and strange underlying harmonics.

 **So does yours,** Riot said.

Drake’s face was mashed against Brock’s chest, so he turned his head in order to see the tendrils from both symbiotes anchored into the bodies that weren’t hosting them. He shivered. Brock pressed an idle kiss to his temple. Of course he was the sentimental type. Drake shifted position, but quickly realised there wasn’t much room to manoeuvre. 

Brock’s bed wasn't really built to hold two humans, so rolling off him completely wasn’t viable. At least the symbiotes made things more comfortable, preventing hips jutting into each other and cushioning otherwise pointed elbows. Staring at the watermarks on the ceiling would probably have allowed Drake to gather his thoughts more quickly, but he decided lying with his nose jammed against the side of Brock’s neck had its advantages. **I like their scent,** Riot commented lazily. Drake supposed he did too. 

Brock slurred something that may have been words. Venom’s tendrils tightened minutely around Drake and Riot, before easing off and out. The sensation sent an odd ripple through them both. Riot helped Drake shift over so he could at least get a look at Brock’s face. He reached out, tracing a firm line down Brock’s stubbly jaw with the tip of his index finger. Brock hummed and tilted his head, incidentally baring his throat. Riot’s attention sharpened. 

‘Come work for me,’ Drake said. 

Brock tensed up as soon as he registered the words. ‘What? No. Hell no. What?’ he spluttered. Of course he’d default to stubborn denial before he’d even fully regained his faculties. 

Drake silently admitted that could have picked his moment better. But while the offer was impulsive, it was deadly sincere. Drake had had a lot of time to think about what he wanted from Brock and Venom. ‘No, hear me out,’ he said quickly. ‘I’ve already got you two as a check against anything we might do to endanger the world. This isn’t so different. Riot and I…’ Drake trailed off. He didn’t even know how he would begin to articulate that earlier revelation. How dangerous it felt to be distancing himself from humanity, especially since he’d been doing it without even noticing. 

**Dangerous for _them_ ,** Riot scoffed.

 _Yes, exactly,_ Drake thought.

‘Yeah, and we’ve already told you that we’re going to do that. It doesn’t mean we want to be on your fucking payroll,’ said Brock. The post-sex languor had nearly fallen away from him entirely. Naturally _obstinacy_ was the only force capable of rallying him so quickly.

‘It would pay incredibly well,’ Drake pointed out.

Brock grimaced. ‘Well done, you managed to make it creepier. Extra no.’

Now Brock was just being irrational. Drake switched tactics. ‘But think about what the work would entail. You could be a consultant. You could review our ethics policies. I’d let you make calls about our… methods.’

Brock’s eyes narrowed. ‘You’d “let” me, huh? Awfully generous. Hardly suspicious at all, really. I guess I’d have no reason to keep an eye on your shady business practices and inhumane research if I was the one making the calls.’

Drake let out a sharp, exasperated breath. Sometimes Brock wasn’t as stupid as he appeared. It was particularly galling that for once the accusation wasn’t true. No, Drake’s reasons for wanting Brock close were much less sensible than neutralising a potential threat. ‘That’s not why I’m trying to headhunt you.’

Brock eyed Riot’s quiescent tendrils. ‘Poor choice of words.’

‘Brock, can you just-’

‘Oh, I’m only “Brock” when you’re really pissed.’ He grinned, clearly enjoying this. Damn him. ‘You really want this? Then tell me the real reason you want me to work for you.’

Did Brock just get lucky or had he actually realised that Drake was holding something back? Or maybe Venom could tell. Drake eyed the slow-moving tendrils as they wandered over both of them. Did it have access to Drake’s biometrics? For a dizzying moment he was hit with the wild impulse to actually share the whole truth. _Because you’re so fucking human, even with Venom riding you, and I need to be close to that. I want everything. I want you on my payroll. I want stretched out on my bed with every part of you on display just for us, and, even now, on some level, I want you in one of my labs._ Drake stamped down hard on the impulse to say any of that out loud. He wasn’t about to destroy this new and fragile _thing_ between them. However, he also didn’t think he could get away with a direct lie. 

‘Possessiveness,’ he said instead, which was technically true. Riot growled its approval to him privately. 

Brock blinked at him, finally caught off-guard. ‘You know you don’t own your employees, right?’ 

Drake raised an eyebrow. ‘Have you seen the state of our labour laws recently?’

Brock let out a surprised laugh. ‘Holy shit, you have a sense of humour. A dark, depressing one, but still, I thought you’d had it surgically removed.’

Drake snorted. And sometimes Brock’s off-beat humour slipped under his guard. He had a way of connecting, of trying to see the truth of a person. Even before his bond with Riot, the thought of someone seeing all the way through Drake’s careful public persona was alluring. These days he might actually _need_ it. 

‘Think about it,’ Drake said easily. There was no point in pushing further right now. He’d planted the seed of the idea.

‘And again, still no. Still _hell_ no.’

Drake smiled. ‘We’ll see.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the DNA nets Venom picked up from Eddie in this fic are [definitely a real thing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrophil_extracellular_traps). One of our immune cells makes them and they’re called neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs). Humans are wild.


End file.
